


The Starving Faithful

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bloodplay, Bondage, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Knifeplay, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Power Play, Vaginal Sex, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To the world, Irene Adler is The Woman, cruel and untouchable, the dominatrix who brought a nation to its knees, and Sherlock Holmes is the Consulting Detective, the unfeeling machine that bled logic rather than blood. To the world they are extraordinary and inhuman, but in each other they find something different, a very different sort of worship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Starving Faithful

**Author's Note:**

> _I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies_  
>  _I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_  
>  \- "Take Me To Church", Hozier

His arms ache.

His brain never stops, and his internal sense of time is impeccable. The human machine, keeping time relentlessly as his brain sifts through information, sifts through data, desperately seeking the clue, the puzzle, the murder, chasing the next hit, the next high, the next bit of stimulation to stave off terminal boredom.

His brain never stops. Except now.

His arms ache, pulled tight by the silken slick of cords wrapped around each wrist, wrenching his arms wide apart and slightly above his head as he sags forward and he cannot recall how long it has been since he has been on his knees.

Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days?

He marks time now in the bite of leather, in the sting like fire against his flesh, in the metronome of stiletto heels clicking against the polished wood floor that bruises his knees. He marks his time in Her presence, in the purr of Her voice, and in the hoarse cries She wrings from his throat like some pagan prayer.

Pagan prayers from a man who thinks himself a god. The wet drip of blood from a man whom others thought a machine.

His brain never stops. Except now his focus is utterly on _Her_ . On where the next lash from Her whip will fall, on what he can say, how he can _beg_ that will please Her, that will make Her draw close enough for him to smell Her perfume and Her scent, to feel the radiant heat from Her body against the tender welts on his.

Her fingers rest against his shoulder and he shudders at the feel of Her hand cool against the newest welt on his skin, his body swaying into Her touch as he strains against his bonds. His blood pounds in his ears, in his brain, in his loins, and there is not _enough_ . Not enough of _Her_ , not enough blood in his body to rush to every part of him that screams for stimulation. Her nails bite into his skin, into the fresh welt and all its aflame nerves and he gasps, a ragged tortured wanting sound as the pain of it mingles with the pleasure of Her touch.

“Come now,” She purrs, her voice low and dark with pleasure, Her lips near his ear, every syllable like a fresh hit of cocaine in his veins. “Say it for me.”

He obeys, because to deny Her now is unthinkable, because She is Goddess and he is penitent and without hesitation Sherlock Holmes begs for mercy, begs for release, his knees biting into the hard wood of the floor, his body throbbing with the desire for release and his mind sinking into the bliss of submission.

“ _Please._ ”

 

***

 

She draws in a slow breath at the single word that falls from his lips, a breath that at once savours the moment of his submission and calms her, keeps her from shuddering in response. No client's submission ever affected her so, no wanting cry from any other man or woman was like a spark to tinder.

But then, he is not a client.

A slow, anticipatory smile spreads across her face, and though unseen and unobserved by either she nor the man on his knees, her pupils grow wide and dark as she looks down at him, as she digs her nails into the dark red welt one last time before she withdraws. He does not whimper until she withdraws, until the cool touch of her fingers and the sharp pain of her nails have departed from his skin. He whimpers at the lack of contact and her smile grows hungry, predatory.

Yes, the game is begun in earnest.

She steps back from him, and his body jerks in an instinctive response to follow a moment before his mind stops him, forces himself to remain on his knees, the very model of patience despite his obvious hunger. “You know what to do,” she says, stepping away from him, to the sideboard. The leather attache is open, the only implement currently missing from its place the whip, but she picks up another, out of view, and opens a bottle.

The stinging scent of isopropyl alcohol creeps into the room like an ether, made stronger as she splashes a generous portion into a gauze pad. He breathes in sharply at the new stimulus, jerks his head towards the sideboard as if to better identify the scent, as she unwraps the velvet coverings to reveal a slim, sharp knife, its blade little more than the width of a finger, its edge honed to razor sharpness. There is a heaviness to the blade that belies its delicate appearance, and her hands are steady, knowing as she handles the weapon, careful to keep her fingers from the blade as she runs her thumb along the hilt. She wipes its edge with alcohol, then brings the gauze and the blade with her, careful to keep herself out of his line of sight.

He holds himself still, his anticipation betrayed in the tense muscles of his back, in the way he jerks his head as if to catch some tiny sound. “Now, Mr. Holmes,” she says, her voice dark and smoky with anticipation as she rests the alcohol soaked gauze against his back, tracing along his shoulder, “Make a deduction.”

He sighs at the kiss of gauze, at the way the evaporating liquid leaves his stinging skin cool in its passage. “Isopropyl alcohol,” he says immediately, his voice rough with use. He is breathless, shuddering beneath her touch as she runs the gauze pad along his back, following the curve of his spine, but his words are quick and sure, as much a prayer as a deduction. “No more than 70% judging by the time between your opening of the bottle and the time it reached detectable levels in the room. Soaked into a gauze pad, traced along skin.”

A moment of hesitation, a gulp of air, as she runs the pad against an old scar at his shoulder, a knot of scar tissue that has not quite faded with time. Despite the precision with which she moves over the knot, she knows it intimately, knows the bullet that caused it and its trigger man. “You could be using it to facilitate sensation play, to alternate between heat and cold but you could do that as easily as with ice. No, you chose isopropyl alcohol for a reason.”

She takes a slow breath, feeling tension curl slow and pleasant at the base of her spine, a slow ache beginning to clench and build in the pit of her stomach as she watched the pieces fall into place for him in the confidence in his words, and she touches his skin with the point of the silver knife. “You chose it for its antiseptic properties,” he breathes out, all but swaying into the knife pressed lightly against his skin. “To disinfect. Knife play.”

She laughs quietly, a soft breath and a curl of perfume as her pulse races, releases more of her scent into the room to mingle with the antiseptic. “Very good. You've been doing your research,” she says approvingly. She taps the knife point against his back, at the boundary of scar tissue and healed flesh, and he gasps in anticipation. “Shall we begin?”

He nods, hair falling into his eyes as he rests his forehead against the soft comforter at the foot of the bed to which his arms are bound, as his entire back tenses in anticipation, waiting for the first prick, the first sting, the first touch of precise blade to skin. It is more than the whip, more than the claw of nails. It is submission in blood and steel, a sacrifice of flesh and blood to the Goddess who stands over him, her eyes dark with desire and her own body aching for release. But her hands are steady as she holds the knife to his shoulder, waiting for his answer.

“ _Yes._ ”

 

***

 

She continually surprises him. He knows how their games are played now, knows intimately the rules they rarely spoke of, the mutual understanding that they came together in pain and pleasure, in an intensity that did not linger on the faces they showed the world. He knows this, and yet he can never anticipate Her ability to surprise him.

He had thought his mind incapable of another distraction, incapable of holding another thread, juggling another puzzle, when his mind was full of _Her._ His awareness is full of Her scent, full of the knowledge of where She stands just behind and to the right of him, of how She holds Her body, balanced on the stiletto heels that are as much a part of his knowledge of Her as Her barbed wire smile and the pale skin he longed to press his lips to. He was full of _Her_ yet bereft, and She pricks him still, demanded his mind be at as full attention as his body. She pricks him with demands, with puzzles, with the mystery of what She'd brought with Her teased in scent and sound, and now She pricks him with a knife, with the promise of a blade against his skin.

His mind _is_ _full_ of Her, full of the Woman on Her marble pedestal, the Goddess in Her ivory skin and steel tipped nails, and yet She _demands_ _more_. Demands he _impress,_ demands he _deduce_ as blood lacquered nails trace along his throat and Her perfume and Her scent fills his nose and his mind.

She pushed him to his limits, and he gloried in it.

She pushes him now, and he is at once straining to feel Her against him, straining to form the proper words to beg for mercy, and trying to understand the significance of the path the blade takes against his skin. She does not break skin wantonly, instead tracing the edge of the blade in patterns against his nerves, patterns broken up by the scar tissue at his shoulder, that leaves a void of sensation when the blade passes. He strains against the silken ropes tying his wrists to the four poster bed, tries to ignore the bite of wood against his knees, and replays each pass of Her knife in his mind.

Long straight lines, that crisscross his skin with geometric precision. Would they be as geometric against the less sensitive scar tissue? He cannot be certain, and it is that precise uncertainty that explains why She chose that point to run her blade. A smile pulls at his mouth even as the edge of the knife digs into his skin, breaks skin as easily as a sigh, drawing a single sinuous curve across his upper back. It is a shallow wound, easily healed, but he feels blood well up against Her knife, feels the way She sweeps the cutting edge against his skin as intimately as a lover's kiss, and it is _fire_ against his nerves.

He gasps, a low wanting cry at the single touch that is at once too much and nowhere near enough, and it is as if the sound is coming from a distance, a low needy whimper. Her finger traces a spot parallel to the cut, near his scar, then veers away to make a circular loop, an island of soft touch-- an _island_.

“ _Paris,_ ” he cries out, the city a supplication and a prize, the puzzle etched onto his skin for him to solve even as pain and need danced along every fiber of his being. “The Seine and _Île Saint-Louis. T_ he _Île de la Cité._ I found you there, on the Left Bank, the American tourist browsing the booksellers. The turn of your ankle gave you away.”

He shudders with mingled fierce satisfaction and need as the lines She had scribed on his back resolve into a map. The old gunshot wound is the _Île de la Cité,_ the curving cut the Seine, and the geometric lines She'd scribed becoming the broad, geometric avenues of Paris. Her demand is clear now, the demand to remember another holiday, another disguise. Pain and pleasure and the demand he _impress_ , the way She twisted him in knots both physical and mental.

Yes, she knew _precisely_ what he liked very very well.

Her body is close as She sets the knife aside, and he can feel the warm swell of Her breasts against his back, can lean into their softness and mar Her untouchable perfection with his blood. He can, but he does not, not when Her lips are at his ear, her tongue tracing the curve, and he is painfully aware of Her scent, of the intoxicating mix of Her sex and Her perfume, of the knowledge that She is as painfully aroused as he is.

But Her words are cool and controlled despite Her obvious desire. “Very good,” She praises, reaching around him to run a finger down his sternum. “And what reward do you think you've earned for that, Mr. Holmes?”

He flexes his hands in their bonds, considers all that he could demand, but the words that fall from his lips are simple and automatic, a response of pure desire.

“You, _please_.”

 

***

  
  
She lingers against him in that moment, she is the untouchable Goddess, the dominatrix to her clients, but to him she is the Woman, the Woman simultaneously on the pedestal and shuddering beneath his fingers. She prefers to be untouchable to her clients, but then he is not a client. With clients she is used to being begged to be touched, but only with him does she find herself wanting to be. With him she is Woman in all her forms, both perfection in cold marble and warm heat.

She runs her hand along his back, tracing along his spine, avoiding the stinging cut that had been the Seine on the map of his skin, and she draws back, her lips against a particularly sensitive spot at the back of his neck. “And if I let you have me as you are now?” she asks, shifting sinuously so that every inch of her body pressed against his in turn. “On your knees, without your hands.”

He sways, fly-stung, against her, leaning heavily into her body, his breathing heavy as he leans into her, as if he can catch the scent of her hair, the taste of her skin by pressing himself against her. “I expect I would earn my hands free in moments,” he answers, his arrogant self assurance on display despite his breathless words. “Care to prove me wrong, Woman?”

Her own smile is predatory anticipation, hunger and desire mingled into a single gesture as she ducks under his upraised arm to slip into the small, intimate distance between his kneeling form and the bed she has lashed him to. She rises to her full height in the stiletto heels, and he tilts his head to look up at her, his eyes dilated with desire, his lips parted. She watches him closely as his gaze shifts, as he forces himself to _focus_ with eyes that are almost completely dark pupils ringed by pale colour, and she sees herself reflected in those eyes. She wears nothing but a sheer lace brassiere, the dark lace a fine pattern against her skin that nevertheless cannot hide the blushing aureole, the hardened tips of her nipples, and a matching pair of knickers low on her hips. Knickers that cling to her, that do nothing to hide her arousal, that outline every curve and every seam rather than hiding it.

She towers over him on his knees, the untouchable goddess, her perfection in black and white broken by splashes of red: the soles of her stiletto heels, the slash of precisely perfect red lipstick at her mouth, and the smear of red blood, his blood, at her breast where she had pressed herself against the wound she had inflicted. She smirks as he draws a sharp breath, as if overwhelmed by her sudden closeness, overwhelmed by sudden abundance when he had just a few moments ago been starved. He remains on his knees, his legs splayed slightly apart, resting his weight back on his heels. He is perfectly still but for the rise and fall of his chest in laboured steady breathing, and she rests her left foot on his right thigh. He remains steady, does not move as she rests her weight on that foot, then sets her right foot on his left thigh, carefully balancing her stilettos on his body until she leans back to rest her buttocks against the mattress.

There is trust and power in the position, power in the pain of her heels against his thighs, trust in the power he has to not move. She balances herself and waves her hand at him, the knife she had pressed against him earlier now back between her fingers. His eyes flicker to it, his throat works as he considers it and swallows, and she sets it back on the bed, bracing both palms against the mattress to steady herself and her weight. She arches an eyebrow at him, and her eyes are dark despite her cool, taunting smirk.

“I think we both know you'll prove yourself wrong first, Mr. Holmes.”

He shoots her a glare for a moment, a spark of defiance in his eyes despite his posture, and without a word, he leans forward, pressing his mouth eagerly to her skin, his eyes refusing to leave hers as he runs his tongue along the familiar swell of her stomach, as his teeth catches the lace edge of her knickers, and without a second's hesitation, twists to snap the delicate lace at her hip.

She sucks in a sharp breath at the unexpected pain, at the sudden _release_ of fabric, at the way his tongue immediately delves into the familiar cleft. It is the last deep breath she takes, as her awareness suddenly narrows to nothing but him, but the feel of his breath warm and wet against her skin, his lips and tongue quick and demanding as he traces teasing lines along the outer edge, alternating light licks and quick fierce sucks at her clit.

The pleasant dull ache that had uncoiled in the pit of her stomach is now suddenly hunger, what had been smoldering heat fanned to flame by his lips and tongue, her every nerve screaming for the touch she had been so careful to dole out. Her head falls back, and she arches off the bed, her hips moving into his talented mouth, the Goddess suddenly the offering, the untouchable Woman on her pedestal suddenly the Woman keening, the Woman hungry for touch.

He is not a client, and he will never be one. She prefers to be the Goddess to her clients, as he the God to his, but he is the only one to whom she would wish to be human, to be warm flesh and liquid pleasure as well as the untouchable.

She feels him laugh against her core, feels his breath tickle her skin like pinpricks, and she gasps again, her head tossing, the motion dislodging the pins that held her coiffure together. Curls come undone, scatter against the bedsheets, and her hands grasp for the knife she'd held just moments ago. She struggles to move, to pull away to _think_ rather than to act, but he is as relentless as she, and he sways against her, his mouth refusing her peace, his lips and tongue tugging at her clit, scraping against her entrance, spelling out landmarks, museums, places in Paris where they had lingered, teased, _misbehaved_. He drives her towards orgasm, towards the headlong rush into submission, and she is pinned against him by little more than his mouth, as certainly as he is pinned to the bed by her ropes.

Irene Adler gasps, cries out, and it is with the very barest margin that she manages to hold on to the knife, to sit up long enough to slash the bonds tying his wrists to the bedposts. She nicks the wood, but she can hardly care, not when her entire awareness is of his traitorous mouth against her entrance, her skin starved for touch, the single word that he wrings from her lips ringing in her ears as the knife falls from her fingers and her entire body shudders in submission.

“ _Please_.”

 

***

  
Their games are unpredictable, spanning days and continents, but their worship is the same. She is his Goddess and his Paramour, he her Opponent and her Lover. Their pain and their pleasure are their prayer and ablution, drawing each other out in denial for as long as they are physically able.

And they come together in intensity, in blood and sweat and lips and tongue, in tangled limbs and biting kisses. She cuts his bonds and his hands are immediately on her, his fingers digging deep, bruising her pale skin as he rises, pulls her above him onto the bed. She cries out her first orgasm with his mouth between her legs, and her fingers tangle in his hair as she mounts him. He shudders beneath her as she surrounds him, and thrusts deep to make her cry out as she urges him on to his own long denied orgasm.

They tangle themselves in each other, marking each other in bruised flesh and parted skin, in blood and sweat and parted lips. Their sentiment is writ in teeth marks against throats, in the tracery of nails against each other's back, in cries of mingled pain and pleasure drawn up from throats as fingers tighten in dark curly locks. They are, in these moments, God and Goddess, Man and Woman, at once the ideal they each pretend to to and the humanity they cannot hide. Sherlock Holmes begs for mercy into Irene Adler's hair, and cries out his release into the hollow of her collarbone, thrusting deep into her body as she clenches around him. Irene Adler pleads for release, her mouth crushed to his as her nails dig furrows into Sherlock Holmes' back, and her voice is cracked and hoarse as another orgasm crashes over her and she falls back boneless into his arms.

In these moments of intensity, they worship at the altar of flesh and sentiment, their influence over each other working deep under each other's skins, etching themselves into each other's bones, until they are spent, and they part again, their bruises and their cuts healing, skin knitting whole and flawless, hiding their weakness and their sentiment under the mask of the machine, under the marble flesh of the Goddess on her pedestal.

**Author's Note:**

> I know some people were probably hoping my next posted fic would be the next installment of _Death Takes A Holiday_ , but this little plot bunny decided to take up residence in my brain and refused to leave until it was exorcised. So, I hope you forgive the delay in DTaH, and that a little BDSM porn makes up for it until then.


End file.
